Ofcom: 98% of UK households receiving DTV

April 18, 2013

Ofcom has published the Digital Television Update for the 4th quarter of 2012. The update reports on the take-up of digital TV services in the UK, including multichannel and platform share. Following the completion of the digital switchover, this will be the final update. It finds that:

– In Q4 2012, 98 per cent of households (25.1 million) received digital television over any platform, an increase of nearly 5 percentage points on Q4 2011.
– 75 per cent of households watched TV over a digital terrestrial signal in Q4 2012, an increase of 0.5 percentage points on Q4 2011.
– In Q4 2012, 54 per cent of households subscribed to pay TV, up by 2 percentage points on Q4 2011. 37 per cent of households subscribed to pay satellite in Q4 2012, the same proportion as in Q4 2011. 13 per cent of households subscribed to cable in Q4 2012, which was also the same proportion as in Q4 2011.
– In Q4 2012, 3.4 per cent of households had multichannel platforms other than digital terrestrial, satellite and cable, up by 1.4 percentage points on Q4 2011.
– There were an estimated 2.12 million free-to-view digital satellite households in Q4 2012, up from 2.04 million in Q4 2011, according to the survey data.